Commercial Monomer Availability Leading to Missed Opportunities

Apr 13, 2018 - use of commercially available para-only or meta/para-mixed VBC isomers. ..... ACS Publications website at DOI: 10.1021/acsaem.8b00438...
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Commercial monomer availability leading to missed opportunities? Anion-exchange membranes made from metavinylbenzyl chloride exhibit an alkali stability enhancement. Julia Ponce-Gonzalez, John Robert Varcoe, and Daniel Keith Whelligan ACS Appl. Energy Mater., Just Accepted Manuscript • DOI: 10.1021/acsaem.8b00438 • Publication Date (Web): 13 Apr 2018 Downloaded from http://pubs.acs.org on April 16, 2018

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Commercial Monomer Availability Leading to Missed Opportunities? Anion-Exchange Membranes Made from meta-Vinylbenzyl Chloride Exhibit an Alkali Stability Enhancement. Julia Ponce-González,* John R. Varcoe, and Daniel K. Whelligan Department of Chemistry, The University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH, UK KEYWORDS: Anion-exchange membranes, alkaline membrane fuel cells, water electrolysers, vinylbenzyl chloride, benzyltrimethylammonium, 1,6-elimination, ultrasound-assisted grafting, radiation-induced grafting. Supporting Information Placeholder Benzyltrimethylammonium-type anion-exchange polymers are common in alkali membrane fuel cells and water electrolysers but they suffer from degradation under alkaline conditions. Radiationgrafted anion-exchange membranes exhibit an alkali stability enhancement when made using non-commercial meta-only vinylbenzyl chloride (VBC) monomer, compared to the use of commercially available para-only or meta/para-mixed VBC isomers. We hypothesize a mechanism on why the use of meta-VBC eliminates AEM degradation via chain scission.

Poly(vinylbenzyltrimethylammonium) (PVBTMA) chemistry is common in anion-exchange polymers due to the facile polymerization of styrenic vinyl groups and their ease of synthesis via monomers containing highly reactive benzylic chloride functionality (used to introduce target quaternary ammonium (QA) groups).1–6 For this reason it has been extensively employed in anion-exchange membranes (AEMs) and ionomers (AEI) for use in alkali membrane fuel cells and electrolysers. However, this chemistry lacks the necessary stability at >60°C, especially when the AEMs/AEIs are less hydrated.7,8 Hence, more alkali robust QA chemistries are required.9 The degradation of benzyltrimethylammonium cations (BTMA, C6H5CH2NMe3+) in alkali has been widely studied and the benzylic carbon (α to the QA group) is most sensitive to OH- attack10–13 – this results in displacement of the QA group by a SN2Bn mechanism (or via an ylide) yielding benzyl alcohol and trimethylamine.14 A recent approach to reduce this has been to introduce aliphatic “spacers” between the QA and aromatic groups.15 Our attempt at this strategy resulted in a radiation-grafted AEM with reduced ionexchange capacity (IEC) and conductivity.16 An alternative strategy is therefore sought. As mentioned by Hickner,18 if the transition state (TS) involves the development of positive charge at the benzylic carbon then electron-donating substituents will increase the rate of SN2Bn reaction. The modified Hammett parameter σ+ quantifies the ability of a substituent to do this and is increasingly negative for stronger electron-donating substituents. An isopropyl group, representative of a PVBTMA backbone, has σ+ = -0.06 in the meta-position and -0.28 in the para-position (hereafter referred to as the 3- and 4positions, respectively), predicting an increased rate of hydrolysis for the 4-isomer (the partial positive charge can be stabilized by hyperconjugation from the 4- but not the 3-position).17 We therefore hypothesized that 3-PVBTMA would be significantly more stable to alkaline hydrolysis than 4-PVBTMA.

PVBTMA-type polymers have been shown to degrade in solution not only by the same degradation mechanisms as the BTMA molecule itself, but also via other mechanisms that give rise to additional by-products.18,19 A previous study observed the loss of pendant BTMA moieties upon the alkali treatment of ETFE-based PVBTMA-grafted AEMs.20 This was evidenced by the change of integration of the aromatic peaks, with respect to the ETFE bands, after treatment in aqueous KOH (1 M) at 80°C for 28 d, in both the Raman and solid state NMR (SS-NMR) spectra. This result suggests that a scission of the grafted chains could be taking place, a phenomenon also observed by Espiritu et al. with LDPE-based PVBTMA-grafted AEMs.21 Since the resulting PVBTMA degradation fragments are soluble in water, they could be washed out of the degrading AEM, leading to a loss of IEC. A mechanism which supports such degradation was recently proposed by Hickner and

Scheme 2. Synthesis of ETFE-based radiation-grafted AEMs with different VBC isomers compositions.

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involves a 1,6-Hofmann-type elimination (labelled “1,4-elimination” in their paper).19 This has been shown as early as 1960 to occur in 4-methylbenzyltrimethyl ammonium hydroxide heated at 60100°C.22 Degradation proceeds via a 1,4-quinodimethane-like intermediate and we propose (Scheme 1, vide infra) that the diradical resonance form of this could fragment and/or depolymerize. It is important to note that only 4- and 2-substituted benzene rings are able to form quinone-like structures, thus, 3-PVBTMA would not be susceptible to this mechanism. While evidence to distinguish between the degradation products of SN2Bn and 1,6-elimination mechanisms could not be obtained, small molecule degradation tests by Hickner et al. revealed that 4methylbenzyltrimethylammonium groups degrade faster than BTMA. This suggests that the presence of 4-methyl groups accelerates degradation, either through 1,6-elimination or stabilized SN2Bn.19 The evidence against 4-PVBTMA grafted groups being stable in alkali motivated us to compare the separate 3- and 4-isomeric forms of our radiation-grafted AEMs. Thus, the alkali stabilities of ETFEg-PVBTMA AEMs, prepared separately from pure 3-VBC, pure 4VBC and the 3-/4-VBC mixture (1:1 ratio determined by NMR, see Figure S8 in SI), were studied. 4-VBC and 3-/4-VBC mixed monomers are commercially available but not 3-VBC so a novel threestep synthesis was developed (detailed in the SI). This involved THP-protection of 3-bromobenzyl alcohol23 followed by conversion to the Grignard reagent and Fe-mediated coupling with vinylacetate.24 Final alcohol deprotection and conversion to the chloride occurred in one step using dichloromethylene-dimethyliminium chloride.25 For the grafting step (Scheme 2), pre-irradiated ETFE films (40 kGy absorbed dose) were immersed in aqueous mixtures of the corresponding VBC monomer (5% v/v) and wetting agent (1-octyl-2pyrrolidone, 1% v/v), purged with N2 for 2 h and then treated in an ultrasound bath at 70°C.26 As reported previously,16 the use of ultrasound was found necessary to avoid the formation of homopolymer during grafting. To minimize synthetic variables, the same sonication input was applied with all three VBC monomers. In the first instance, the ultrasound-assisted grafting was carried out over a period of 6 h and this produced grafted intermediate ETFE-VBC membranes with degrees of grafting (DoG) of 94, 55 and 29% with the 4-VBC, 3/4-VBC mixture and 3-VBC, respectively (see Table S3 in the SI). This highlights the different reactivities of the isomers with 4-VBC affording a much higher DoG for the same grafting time. A related phenomenon has been reported for nitroxide-mediated polymerization of VBC – although 3/4-monomer mixtures showed only marginally faster conversion of the 4-VBC, mixtures containing a higher content of 4-VBC yielded higher molecular weight polymers (albeit with higher polydispersity index due to increased chain transfer events with 4-VBC).27 In our work, as radiation-grafting is a radical polymerization process, this may translate to faster grafting when using pure 4-VBC. In both cases, this is likely due to increased stabilization of the intermediate 4-substituted benzyl radical by hyperconjugation with the backbone alkyl group which is not possible for the 3-substituted analogue. Our prior experience has indicated that an AEM’s IEC has a significant influence on its ex-situ alkali degradation rate. This was observed for two radiation-grafted AEMs with different IECs that were prepared with the same chemistries and grafting conditions (using different batches of mixed 3/4-isomer VBC, Table S1 in the SI). Upon treatment with aqueous KOH (1 M) at 80°C for 28 d, AEM-a (original IEC = 1.85 mmol g-1), experienced an IEC loss of 35% whereas AEM-b (original IEC = 2.12 mmol g-1) lost just 16%. This agrees with the prior literature in that this behavior derives from different water contents. Higher OH- hydration reduces this anion’s nucleophilicity, resulting in reduction in the alkali degradation of the polycationic chains.8 AEM-b presented a λ value

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Table 1. Key grafting variables and properties of the AEMs produced (errors are from repeat measurements on n = 4 samples of each AEM). AEM4VBCTMA

AEM3/4VBCTMA

AEM3VBCTMA

Monomer [% v/v]

5

5

6

Reaction time / h

1

2

6

DoG [%]

61

54

27

IEC / mmol g-1

1.88 ± 0.02

1.86 ± 0.08

1.13 ± 0.02

WU [%]

51 ± 4

51 ± 4

16 ± 3

λ

15.0 ± 1.1

15.1 ± 1.4

8.1 ± 1.3

IEC Loss [%]

54 ± 2

37 ± 5

26 ± 3

(number of H2O per cationic group) of 18 whereas that of AEM-a was λ = 13. Given the above, our desire was to test the isomer effect on the stability of the AEMs of similar IEC with each VBC monomer. By decreasing the reaction time during the grafting step, the DoG of ETFE-4VBC and ETFE-3/4VBC reduced to 54 and 61% respectively. However, we could not obtain a DoG > 27% for ETFE3VBC. VBC grafting was confirmed using Raman spectroscopy (Figure S9 of the SI). The different isomers produced distinctive spectra. ETFE-4VBC yielded an intense peak at 1615 cm-1 and two peaks around 1200 cm-1 (all related to the aromatic ring), whereas ETFE-3VBC yielded two peaks at 1000 and 700 cm-1 (highly characteristic of meta-disubstituted benzene rings).20,28 The spectrum of ETFE-3/4VBC combines the spectral features of the two pure isomer AEMs, proving the grafted chains contain both isomers. Next, the three grafted ETFE-VBC intermediates were quaternized with aqueous trimethylamine (TMA, 45% v/v) at room temperature for 24 h. The main properties of the resulting AEMs are summarized in Table 1. Despite our intentions, the IEC and λ of AEM-3VBC-TMA was significantly lower. Considering the above

Figure 1. 13C SS-NMR spectra of the AEMs before (black) and after (red) alkali treatment in aqueous KOH (1 M) at 80°C for 28 d. All spectra have been normalized to the intensity of the δ = 22 band (ETFE’s methylene CH2 groups).

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Figure 3 %Loss of IEC and losses of Cl/C and N/C molar ratios (the latter extracted from elemental analyses) of the AEM samples after ex situ alkali treatment in aqueous KOH (1 M) at 80°C for 28 d. Figure 2. Raman spectra recorded on the surface of the AEMs before (black) and after (red) ex situ alkali treatment in aqueous KOH (1 M) at 80°C for 28 d. All spectra have been normalized to the ETFE 830 cm-1 band. discussions, our concern now was that this additional variable would have a negative effect on the alkali stability of the AEM. Nevertheless, AEM-3VBC-AEM actually showed significantly less alkali degradation than AEM-4VBC-AEM. Furthermore, the AEM produced from the 3/4VBC isomer mixture (with essentially the same IEC and λ to AEM-4VBC-TMA), showed an intermediate degree of alkali-mediated degradation. Figure 1 shows a comparison of the SS-NMR spectra of the preand post-alkali-treated samples of the three AEMs. As expected, AEM-4VBC-TMA reported a significant loss of intensity of the peaks related to the QA methyl carbon atoms (δ = 53 ppm), the benzyl-CH2 (δ = 69 ppm) as well as the aromatic- (δ = 146, 131, 118 ppm) and aliphatic- (δ = 47, 41 ppm) related peaks deriving from the grafted chains. These intensity decreases were also observed, to a lesser extent, for the AEM-3/4VBC-TMA. In contrast, negligible changes to the spectra of AEM-3VBC-TMA upon alkali treatment were seen. Analogous trends were observed using Raman spectroscopy (Figure 2). AEM-4VBC-TMA showed a significant intensity decrease of bands corresponding to the aromatic ring (1615, 1215 and 1181 cm-1) and to the QA (around 900 cm-1),29 whereas the ETFE-derived band (1445 cm-1) remained relatively unchanged. In contrast, no significant intensity changes were observed for the alkali-treated AEM-3VBC-TMA. The spectra for AEM-3/4VBC-TMA showed intermediate levels of intensity losses for the aromatic bands (and the 1000 cm-1 band related to the 3isomer). Although the 3-isomer is less susceptible to 1,6-elimination, chain scission would lead to the loss of both monomers. Thus, post-mortem sample analysis by IEC (Figure 3), SS-NMR, and Raman spectroscopy evidence the superior alkaline stability of 3- over 4-PVBTMA grafted chains. The spectral data shows that 4PVBTMA grafted chains are affected by a degradation mechanism that causes scission of the grafted chain, with a large impact on the IEC. We propose that this mechanism (Scheme 1) initially involves a OH--promoted 1,6-elimination of the TMA-based QA group to give a 1,4-quinodimethane-like intermediate whose resonance form is a diradical. The radical at the benzylic position of the polymer backbone can then fragment the chain to cause the observed scission, after which the resulting new benzylic radical could go on to further depolymerize the polymer until a termination event takes place. This mechanism is similar to one proposed by Hirao et al. to explain the undesired formation of cross-linked polymers in the anionic living polymerization of 4-substituted vinylbenzenes (which did not occur with their 3-analogues).30,31

We also evaluated the degradation in terms of N and Cl atom loss by conducting elemental analysis on the pre- and post-treated samples (Figure 3 and Table S2 of the SI). This method enables us to separately quantify degradation that involves loss of N atoms and compare it to overall loss of positive charge (observed as a reduction in Cl- ion content).20 For AEM-4VBC-TMA, the majority of the degradation takes place with loss of the N atoms, which can be ascribed to SN2Bn hydrolysis and 1,6-elimination. In the case of AEM-3VBC-TMA, the loss of N atoms is reduced, which reflects either a lower propensity for SN2Bn hydrolysis and/or its inability to undergo 1,6-elimination. Recall for AEM-3VBC-TMA, alkali degradation was initially expected to be higher due to its low λ. As an aside, we also aminated ETFE-4VBC, ETFE-3/4VBC and ETFE-3VBC grafted intermediates with N-methylpyrrolidine (MPY), which we have found in previous work to produce more alkali stable AEMs (cf. TMA-types).20 Analogous trends were observed – AEM-4VBC-MPY showed the highest IEC loss on alkali treatment and AEM-3VBC-MPY was the most alkali stable AEM tested despite having a much lower λ (Table S3 in the SI). In summary, ex-situ stability tests evidenced that anion-exchange membranes (AEM) made from radiation-grafting of poly(vinylbenzyltrimethylammonium) (PVBTMA) groups onto ETFE films are more chemically resistant in aqueous alkali media when the benzyl groups are meta-substituted (cf. when they are para-substituted). We hypothesize that this results from two effects: 1. an increased propensity of the para-substituted PVBTMA grafts to undergo SN2Bn hydrolysis by OH- anions due to the ability of the para-alkyl group (grafted polymer hydrocarbon backbone) to stabilize the developing positive charge on the benzylic C-atom in the transition state; 2. the ability of para-substituted PVBTMA

Scheme 1. Proposed alkali-mediated 1,6-elimination and chain scission mechanism on PVBTMA polycations.

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grafts to undergo an additional degradation mechanism involving base-promoted 1,6-elimination of the QA head group. Furthermore, we have shown that the para-substituted AEM also suffers from loss of aromatic groups and this likely arises from chain-scission caused by the intermediate diradical in the 1,6-elimination pathway. This finding has a major impact on the field due to the widespread use of PVBTMA in polymer electrolytes. One disadvantage of the use of the meta-vinylbenzyl chloride (VBC) monomer was its reduced degree of grafting compared to para-VBC, which led to an AEM with an undesirable low ion-exchange capacity. While our next challenge is to improve its degree of grafting for synthesizing this type of radiation-grafted AEM, this important finding (it produces more alkali-stable polymers compared to the commercially available isomers) will be of use to other researchers who are developing other types of alkali stable anion-exchange polymer electrolytes. This work also contributes to the body of knowledge regarding the role of hydration on the stability of AEMs. A higher number of solvating H2O molecules (causes lower nucleophilicity of OHions) leads to more stable AEMs (with comparable quaternary ammonium chemistries). However, higher water uptakes can lead to increased swelling and reduced mechanical stabilities. For each polymer system, an optimum IEC will balance maximized ion conductivity with non-excessive water uptake and minimized alkali degradation.

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Supporting Information The Supporting Information (SI) is available free of charge on the ACS Publications website: 3-VBC synthetic procedures with compound characterization data and NMR spectra, AEM preparation procedures with associated characterization data and Raman spectra, the ex situ alkali test procedure and elemental analysis data (PDF).

AUTHOR INFORMATION Corresponding Author *Email: [email protected] ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3317-1207

Present Addresses Department of Chemistry, The University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH, UK.

Author Contributions The experimental work and most of the data analyses was conducted by Dr Ponce-González. She also drafted the initial version of this article. Prof Varcoe was the principal investigator for the grant and directly participated with results interpretation and in the writing of the article. Dr Whelligan directly supervised the synthesis of the 3-VBC monomer and was instrumental in the analysis of the data related to AEM degradation – he also directly participated in the writing of the article.

Notes There are no conflicts of interest to declare.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The research was funded by EPSRC grant EP/M005933/1. All raw data is freely available on request: access details can be found at DOI WILL BE ADDED AT PROOFING STAGE.

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